em-pyei-n vari-fen jang
by natanije
Summary: Sakura wakes up in the hospital. Which is strange, because Sakura is not someone who frequents the hospital, not at all. (Amnesiac!AU)
1. Chapter 1

**Warnings: dry attempt on humor.**

 **Blame meliss-cake for being a cruel enabler.**

 **This story is heavily influenced by her and the song em-pyei-n vari-fen jang. Yes, it's an actual title, yes you can look it up on YouTube, yes it has English lyrics translation.**

* * *

 **Chapter 1: i will awaken you from your long sleep**

She wakes with the tell-tale smell of antiseptic and various things she can only smell from hospitals or pharmacies alike greeting her nose.

Bleary eyes blink once, twice, before her sight focuses to see white walls. The bed she's lying on isn't like the comfortable mattress she has at home, and it smells different too—there is no lingering smell of lavender, and the sheets are different too, she notices—and with those small clues, she simply concludes she's in the hospital, somehow.

Which is _strange_ , because Sakura is not someone who frequents the hospital, not at all. She ever rarely gets sick, and when she does, a small nap and medication are enough. None of her previous colds have ever gotten so bad she has to go to the hospital yet, and hopefully, never will.

That doesn't explain why she's here, though, and Sakura frowns, trying to remember if something has happened that requires her to be bedridden in the hospital. It's futile, however, because for all of Sakura's wild imaginations, she knows chasing mere Daimyo's wife's evil cat won't have her make a trip to the hospital. She got scratches at most, and almost got yelled at by Sasuke-kun—a part of her wilts a little bit at that thought—but certainly nothing serious enough! So why is she here?

A twitch of her finger touches something that is solid and _warm_ , and Sakura belatedly realizes that her hand is being held by somebody.

 _(A small part of her chastises her, because she's a ninja now, why can't she notice that someone has been sleeping next to her holding her hand this entire time? That gets discarded of quickly enough, however.)_

Jerking in surprise, she very nearly almost yelps when the person holding her hand twitches and jolts awake as if struck by lightning.

And isn't that another surprise, because it's Kakashi-sensei, she realizes, only without his crooked headband—and wow, isn't that a nasty scar on his left eye—and he's staring at her and he's—

Holding… Her hand…?

 _What_.

"Sakura," Kakashi-sensei breathes out, relief palpable in his voice and eyes, and Sakura cannot help but to be confused and a bit overwhelmed at the emotions she can see stark clear in his eyes. Because Kakashi-sensei is aloof and a bit of a jerk, because Kakashi-sensei is always late and lies as easy as he's breathing and he is always so mysterious, so hard to read, which is infuriating but makes him cool sometimes. _Sometimes_.

And yet, here, Kakashi-sensei stares at her with what she can describe as goo-goo eyes—which actually makes her even _more_ overwhelmed, because _what even_ —and she can even guess he's smiling so widely, from how his mask seems to stretch.

If getting sent to the hospital—in which the reason still escapes her, much to her ire—means that she gets her sensei to be less of a jerk and more like a human being with actual feelings, then maybe she should've done so many days ago.

"Sakura," Kakashi-sensei says her name again, still gripping her hand, which is another level of strange, okay. As far as she's known, her sensei doesn't seem to be that much of a touchy feely person. "Sakura, are you alright?"

Sakura blinks, and thinks over that question for a little while. Aside from the uncomfortable feeling of her hand being held by her teacher and her confusion as well as a little headache that she can safely ignore, she is perfectly fine.

"I'm fine, sensei," she says, noticing how Kakashi-sensei's grip seems to tighten a little bit at her words. The kunoichi blinks as her sensei seems to be frozen, the once again unreadable grey eyes staring at her. Frowning, she tugs her hand.

"Sensei, why are you holding my hand? Let me go."

He does so, albeit hesitantly. The man is looking at her weird, as if he's assessing her of something, searching for something, which is _very weird_ , okay, because Sakura doesn't feel like she's missing any limb or anything.

"Maa, Sakura- _chan_ ," the silver haired man says, slowly, as if afraid of spooking her, which is another brand of weird.

Actually, so many weird things happened after she woke up. It makes her wonder what actually happened to her.

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"Um," she starts helpfully, shrinking down a little bit at the intense gaze. Okay, so something clearly happened, she's sure of it now. Her sensei wouldn't have asked her that if nothing happened, after all.

The problem is that she doesn't know _what_.

"Catching Tora mission?" She whispers, because really, that's what she remembers. "Sasuke-kun was leading the mission, and we managed to find it around… five? Six? What happened? What's going on?"

Her sensei stills then, before he relaxes, though Sakura has a slight suspicion that it's forced, somehow.

"Well," Kakashi-sensei stands abruptly, the chair screeching in protest as it's forcefully pushed backward with his abrupt movements. "Can you hear that? The Hokage is calling for me, it seems. Yep. Definitely. I have to go, bye."

And he leaves, just like that.

Jaw open in disbelief, the pink haired girl resists the urge to scream. That little—! He's acting weird, something clearly happened, she doesn't know what happened, and he left her without _telling her anything_! The Hokage called him? The whole room was silent save for their conversation!

In her bout of frustration, her hands reach up to her hair—

And stops short when she can't feel her hair.

Scratch that, she can't feel her _long_ hair.

The well taken care of long pink hair is gone, and instead, when she tugs her hair, she can feel the length is about around her ear.

 _What the—_

Throwing off the blanket covering her, she sprints toward the nearby mirror and almost trips over herself in surprise.

Because not only her long hair is gone—she despairs inwardly, because _not her hair!_ —but her face is _different_. It's older, somehow, the lingering baby fat having gone somewhere. She's definitely looks _older_ , and there's a strange mark on her forehead. She rubs at it, and it doesn't fade away.

A tattoo? Someone tattooed her forehead? And she looks… _older?_ What? _What?_

She looks down.

…Her babies down there are definitely bigger than the last time she's seen it.

No, no, no, no, _no_ , wait, waiiiit—! That doesn't make any sense! What is going on? Why is her hair short? Why is she taller? Why does she have a tattoo on her forehead? Why is her boobs bigge—okay it's actually good that it's bigger but _WHY IS HER HAIR SHORT? JDGIRGJKSGDJH?!_ She vowed to keep her hair long _why is it short now_?!

She thinks that she would've screamed in fear and frustration, if the door doesn't slam open.

Instead, she screams in absolute surprise.

"Sakura," a blonde woman barks at her, the strange mark also apparent on her forehead. "Report!"

"Wh-Wha-huh? What? Wait, who are you?"

The woman's eyes flashes in disbelief and other emotions she cannot decipher. She doesn't respond, instead gritting her teeth and stalks back out, slamming the door shut behind her. Faintly, she hears the woman screamingKakashi-sensei's last name in anger, but she doesn't heed it much and instead settles back into panicking over her appearance.

Because seriously, _what_.

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 **Next chapter: the empty heart (that lacked your presence)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two: the empty heart (that lacked your presence)**

 **Warnings: angst, actual sunshine son Naruto Uzumaki**

* * *

 _Then, new days began._

 _The empty heart that lacked your presence_

 _Was just like a world where the sun never raised on the sky._

em-pyei-n vari-fen jang; Vocals by ORIGA

* * *

 _Sensei,_ she said.

 _Sensei, why are you holding my hand?_

Sensei.

The word is hanging over his head like a cruel mockery of what he was and failed quite spectacularly at, spinning and replaying over and over again in his head to the point it gives him a mild headache.

She hasn't called him that for _years_ , other than some very rare teases here and there, as well as some play time in bed, and the very moment she called him that—while looking so honestly bewildered and confused—he knows something is utterly, _terribly_ wrong.

He _knows_ Sakura; he knows if she's lying or teasing him, knows if she's not entirely serious when she's in a conversation, because for all of her talent in regards to chakra control and medical ninjutsu, she's an awful liar, like most of the members in team seven.

There _should_ be hints of amusement in her eyes, the slight twitch of her lips that she can't hold in, a soft gaze, or even a small snicker—there _should_ be, there should—but when she talked to him after she woke up: how she looked so confused, and dare he say, a bit _spooked_ at how Kakashi was holding her hand, as well as how the last thing she remembered was the Tora catching mission when Tora the Devil Cat is already _dead_ , replaced by Meong the equally ferocious cat, when Sakura hasn't called Sasuke as _Sasuke-kun_ for years, when in actuality _Sasuke-kun_ is nowhere nearby Konoha or even Fire Country to properly lead a mission.

Well.

With things like that sprouting out in front of him, it's very understandable and perfectly reasonable that Kakashi yodeled away from the room.

(He did not run away in fright and panic, he totally _didn't_ ).

(Okay, he probably did).

In all seriousness, he managed to blurt to Tsunade on how things are incredibly wrong on so many levels, managed to give an almost coherent explanation to the Slug Princess about what happened after Sakura had woken up, managed _not_ to destroy Tsunade's personal lab in the hospital.

( _"You said there should be nothing wrong with her! You said!"_

 _"Kakashi-sama," Shizune approaches him, positioning herself in front of Tsunade like a perfect shield, "please, calm down!"_

 _"Quiet," he glowers, "and I told you to stop with the 'sama' thing already!"_ )

He deserves a reward, he thinks, because all he wanted to do then was to crush everything nearby him. Pent-up frustration is a bad thing in a shinobi, which is perhaps the reason why Tsunade sent him away to the Training Grounds as _doctor's orders_ —as if he ever actually followed any doctor advices at all—right after she got confirmation over Sakura's _condition_ in under five seconds flat and flicked his forehead (which is, _ow,_ now that he thinks back about it) for speaking rudely to her apprentice, no matter if he's the Hokage and he should be the one barking orders right now.

(Tsunade is reasonable and _scary_. If she ever orders him around while he's still Hokage, he's damn well gonna do what she says.

Has he ever mentioned that she's _scary_? She's scary).

Now that he's expressed his emotions not through yodeling but actual ninja techniques, he's managed to calm down a little bit and thinks things through.

Though there are no more things to think about other than the fact that she doesn't remember _so much things_ , because catching Tora mission means D-ranks and D-ranks means _genin_ and oh my God, Sakura is twelve again in mind and he _held_ basically twelve-year-old Sakura's hand and slept on the chair next to her and—

And she doesn't remember about him,

About _them_.

And it hurts, somehow. It aches in his heart like something dull is embedded in it, it messes with his mind and gleefully takes away his strength bit by bit. There's panic, fear, and worry running through his veins and _he's at loss on what to do, dammit, he was so happy when she woke up and yet—_

 _And yet—_

…

He cannot fault Sakura on this.

He can't and he mustn't, because this is not her fault, and to blame her for forgetting is just wrong, just like how everything is so wrong at the moment. It's the seal's fault, the one near a temple she fought nearby, the one designed for _protection_ means. Kakashi wants to scoff at it, really, because _protection_ doesn't erase a random person's more than a decade worth of memories.

Tsunade promises him to look into the seal arrays in order to reverse the effect it has on Sakura, and he can help; he can borrow Minato-sensei's and Kushina-san's seal notes that he's given to Naruto after the Fourth War, he's learnt a fair share about sealing from both aforementioned people. He _can_ help with the research.

But he's Hokage and with it comes responsibility, and also because Tsunade won't allow him to abandon Hokage duties in favor of researching about seals.

(" _I can get Naruto and Tenten to help me," Tsunade shoos him away, pushing his shoulder gently, "I can also get Kabuto and Karin to help. They have the Uzumaki seal notes that Orochimaru stole from Uzushio. It'll be fine, brat. Now go destroy the Training Grounds."_ )

This is the time he really regrets ever accepting to be Hokage.

Really.

( _There's still something that settled deep in his gut, eating him up inside._

 _Because it's not only him that is hurting, he knows, truly._

 _But who is_ currently _hurting is not what he's afraid of._

 _He's more afraid on who_ will _be hurting, once they find out about this predicament_

 _He certainly hopes the matter is fixed before it happens)_.

* * *

She's supposed to be 28 year old.

At least, that's what Shizune-san told her.

Her body is of a twenty-eight year-old woman, and she is supposed to have the memories to accompany it.

The problem is that she doesn't remember ever being fourteen, much less twenty eight, because for her she is twelve, a mere green genin who is still living up her D-rank days, chasing after Sasuke-kun and scolding Naruto on daily basis, not twenty eight.

But Shizune-san said it's alright for her to be confused, because she is essentially the wrong mind in the wrong body, and that it'll only be temporary, because Tsunade-sama ( _and isn't that a surprise, to figure out that the blonde woman with the same tattoo as hers is actually the Senju Tsunade, and it's even more of a surprise, to find the Slug Princess smiling at her so softly in a similar way she's seen her mother do to her numerous times in the past)_ is looking for a way to fix this, to fix her.

It feels wrong to think of herself as something _wrong_ and in need to be fixed, but her body shows her otherwise and knowing that she's lost a worthy amount of memories, she agrees easily enough that it's better to regain her memories.

After all, if she keeps on thinking she is twelve, while her body is…

Well, it's very weird.

Everything is weird.

"Sakura-chan?"

At the call of her name, she looks away from the pretty pink flowers in a vase sitting near her hospital bed and moves her gaze toward the source of the familiar yet deeper timbre—

And almost chokes in surprise at the sight in front of her.

Blond hair ( _it's shorter_ , she thinks as she once again mourns over short hairs, _it's_ really _short. Why is everyone's hair shorter?_ ), bright blue eyes, an easy—albeit a bit hesitant—smile, the strange whisker marks on his cheeks—

And is he wearing _black_?

"…Naruto?"

The man—obviously Naruto—brightens in a way that is quite similar to how she remembers, and he puts his hands on his hips, grinning.

"Hey, you remember me! Man, and here I thought you don't remember me at all, 'ttebayo!"

Almost on instinct, she huffs at him, "I don't remember anything past me being _twelve_ , Baka-Naruto, not me forgetting everything."

"Oh, that's right! Right, right." Naruto nods furiously, "anyway, Baa-chan told me to take you around Konoha for sight seeing! I mean, it must be _boooring_ to be in the hospital all day, even though you're usually in the hospital all day if you're not on missions, but that's because you're working here, right, and it's different because you're a patient now, Sakura-chan, so," he finally pauses after a long babble that almost makes her head spin—though she manages to find out that apparently she works at the hospital—and grins in a way that is weird (because Naruto is older and _whoa, he's wearing black!_ ) but also very familiar, "let's go to Ichiraku, Sakura-chan!"

And that's very typical of him too.

"Baka-Naruto, I am not escaping hospital food to eat ramen!"

"But—!"

" _No_."

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 **Wanted to add more, but it becomes too long, so I decided to cut it here.**

 **Next chapter: my dear brethren (can you hear my voice?)**


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